Gilroy

 

 

Gilroy is a historic Santa Clara community with affordable homes and a pastoral agricultural landscape. The community is known for its bountiful harvests of garlic and mushrooms plus several excellent boutique wine producers. Gilroy’s garlic crop is celebrated at the annual Gilroy Garlic Festival, where you can sample creative products such as garlic ice cream. Gilroy’s wineries are located on the western side of the city, which features elegant estates at the base of the Santa Cruz Mountains. The eastern side of the city has spacious single-family homes in relaxed neighborhoods with a suburban vibe.

 

Gilroy is home to many young professionals and their families. This small city offers an idyllic suburban lifestyle within easy reach of employment opportunities in San Jose and throughout Silicon Valley. The city is known as the garlic capital of the world, and the annual Gilroy Garlic Festival and downtown restaurants celebrate the city’s unique legacy with a plethora of unique garlic-based dishes and foodstuffs.

 

Gilroy Gardens Family Theme Park is a major local attraction with fun rides including a mini Ferris wheel, raft rides, and junior rollercoasters, carousels, and swing rides for young children. The theme park’s attractions also include the unique Circus Trees, a garden of trees initially cultivated in the early 20th century to create incredible shapes.

 

For shopping, Gilroy Premium Outlets offers discounted apparel from leading fashion brands including Abercrombie & Fitch, Adidas, Forever 21, Francesca’s, Gap, Guess, H&M, Levi’s, Michael Kors, Polo Ralph Lauren, Steve Madden, and Tommy Hilfiger.

 

Businesses in Downtown Gilroy include Café 152 Bread Co., where menu favorites include tasty and nutritious burritos, Mediterranean fare, and smokehouse bowls for breakfast or lunch. Garlic City Café offers delicious American and Mediterranean-style dishes with garlicky specialties such as garlic calamari steak sandwiches, garlic fries and cheeseburgers, and Gilroy’s unique garlic ice cream. The Milias Restaurant serves inventive New American cuisine for brunch, lunch, and dinner and features a beautiful old-world interior and regular live music performances.

 

July’s Gilroy Garlic Festival is the community’s signature annual event and one of the most famous food festivals in California. The festival features cooking contests with top professional and amateur chefs plus live entertainment from country music acts across three stages. During the festival, attendees can sample all kinds of gourmet garlic-based foodstuffs and special signature cocktails.

 

Santa Clara County is one of California’s premier wine-producing regions, and Gilroy is home to one of the state’s oldest wineries. Kirigin Cellars was established in 1916, and it remains an innovative wine producer best-known for its coffee- and chocolate-infused Vino de Mocca. Eleven varieties of wine grapes are cultivated at Kirigin Cellars’ beautiful 33-acre estate. Visitors can sample these varietals in an elegant Tuscan-style Club House and explore the vineyards’ rolling landscape of rose bushes, redwood sequoias, and cricket lawns.

 

Gilroy Sports Park has trails and paths for jogging and walking, a playground, and sports fields dedicated to baseball, soccer, and softball. Gilroy Library is another great community resource, with lots of programs and classes for children, teenagers, and adults.

 

Gilroy operates its own Gilroy Unified School District. Highlights include: